newLISP Fan Club

Here's NiiLISP.

Look's pretty cool, but the person who created it is a "language hobbiest" who flexed two monthes ago then never touched it again. The enthusiasm for newlisp has been pretty underwhelming, sadly. When ufko announced rebel it looked like there was some interest, but it kind of fizzled. I'm still holding out for a newlisp resurgence, but we'll see.

Janet kind of hurts my eyes, but how's it going for everybody? I must begrudgingly admit that it couldn't possibly hurt me to learn it...

Newlisp is the only language supporting ffi, http, json in a single executable less than 400kb running on Windows. I am unaware of other language with these characteristics.

Cool, thanks for sharing @Yael! As these seem pretty obscure I think it'd help to link directly to them.

Though I mostly agree with what you say about Janet, I think considering Janet the spiritual successor is a far-fetched statement. I would advise you to have a look on niiLISP (Newlisp on Rust) which is a direct dialect of Newlisp. Eshkol is also quite Newlispy (most 'new' Scheme's are, anyway). I guess choosing a programming language which looks Newlisp-like is a matter of personal taste (I love Carp). But if what you are looking for is an updated version of Newlisp, with all its syntax and architecture (ORO, etc.), then Hyperlisp-Sintaxial is the one to go. Hyperlisp is Newlisp on Dlang, with all Newlisp functions and libraries (modules) hardcoded in native D, plus some new 500 functions (stochastic analysis, fractal analysis, cryptoanalysis, the entire Arguelles's fuzzy functions enhanced and recoded, neural network activation functions (elu, relu, leak-relu, mish, etc.), and native math library expanding GSL math library. No external libraries are used, though it incorporates FFI (it is Newlisp, anyway).

The cons is Hyperlisp is propietary software (not commercial), mainly use for strategy war gaming, cryptoanalysis. and signal processing. All in all, niiLISP is what you should consider the closest available new-Newlisp you can have access to.

Problem Solving and recreational mathematics with newLISP
https://github.com/cameyo42/newLISP-Code
More than 4100 topics:
- Tutorial and tricks
- Algorithms (basic and advanced)
- Project Euler
- Rosetta Code
- Programming interview questions
- Computer Science Programming problems
- Math problems
- Probability problems
- Geometric problems
- Logic problems
- Historical problems
- OEIS sequences
- Games
- Puzzles
- Library for recreational mathematics (413 functions)
...

That's a lovely story thanks for sharing oofoe!

Hi! I'm glad this forum is being revived, and I hope that NewLisp finds alternate hosting and maintainers.

With respect to Janet -- for what it's worth, I did successfully make the jump from NewLisp. So, if you'll indulge, a few notes about why and what I found.

I got re-interested in Lisp about the time Paul Graham started writing about his Viaweb experience (e-commerce server, written in Common Lisp). I couldn't make Common Lisp click for me though... Too many exceptions, nutcase documentation (CLHS, need I say more?), every kind of data structure was handled a different way, etc. After a long walk through the desert, I stumbled on NewLisp. It was a long drink of cool water! Many times, things worked exactly the way I expected them to. Often I could just guess at what the appropriate function would be and it was. Combine that with excellent documentation and quick interpreter and I was off to the races. I did a number of things with it, both for work and for fun (current link to my weight+balance calculator: https://hg.sr.ht/~oofoe/wb, and an implementation of Jef Raskin's FLOW language: https://hg.sr.ht/~oofoe/flow)

However, I started finding the need to distribute compiled executables and with the Oracle legal stuff, I wasn't too keen on continuing to use Java for the GUI parts. I dabbled for a bit in Dr. Racket, it at least seemed simpler than Common Lisp, and had the GUI/graphics built in. I tried other things, including ill-advised flirtations with Python compilers. And then... One day I stumbled across Janet.

The initial experience was positive; it had some of the most important features of NewLisp like implicit data access. It does do some strange things, like "#" for comments, but once you see what they're doing with the semicolon for the splice operator, you forgive it. However, for me, the three absolute killer features of Janet are PEGs, multitasking and compiling.

Parsing Expression Grammars (PEG) are something I got used to in REBOL and will never voluntarily give up. They turn parsing from mysterious incantations at midnight (yacc or PCRE) into clear, documented rules that can stand the light of day. I even wrote an PEG that transpiles Janet formatted source code into JavaScript. Absolutely indispensable for correct, reliable parsing. Janet's implementation is clean and flexible.

With multiple network connections, GUIs and long running processes, multitasking of some sort is a must. Janet provides several flavours. The simplest is a "fiber", which is a kind of in-process green thread. Then, threads (of course), and finally actual multiple process synchronization. So far, I've only needed fibers, but it's been more than enough to handle multiple data streams for simulating and controlling scientific instruments.

And compiling. If you're on Linux (or Mac, I think), it works like falling off a log. If you're on Windows it's annoying (thanks Micro$oft), but still doable. It uses a two stage compilation that allows you to control what gets compiled in your source (like C macros, but much nicer). Compared to Racket (or even other scripting language compilers, e.g. Nuitka?), it produces a tiny result (1.7MB for a commercial product where I compiled in all the resources and even the user manual to a single executable).

There are other things that I've discovered, but those are the big three for me. I think if any of that whets your appetite, you should definitely give Janet a look-see.

However! I would never have gotten to Janet without NewLisp. Its simplicity, complete documentation and friendliness to an uninitiated seeker are what brought me into the Lisp fold to stay. I hope it will always remain available for others to discover.

P.S. A really nice book-length tutorial for Janet: https://janet.guide/

One of the things that I really appreciate about newLISP is the design of the function names themselves. The API just makes sense, English-wise, more so than any other Lisp. I think it has to do with Lutz's background in psychology.

That said, I personally like Janet's use of square brackets, braces, etc. for distinguishing different data structures. It helps break up what otherwise would be a very monotonous looking syntax. I definitely am not a fan of "lots of syntax", but having nothing but parenthesis everywhere can make it hard to notice the datastructures vs functions vs whatever else. I think Janet picked a fairly good sweet spot.

And the lack of lists is interesting, true. However, for all intents an purposes arrays are sufficient and performance-wise faster. Same with real hashtables, which newLISP doesn't have.

Having tried it for a while I came to the same conclusion as you.
The thing about newlisp is that it hits that sweet spot of being a lisp for the rest of us.

Still, we have the source code, and people who appreciate newlisp, so it's not really gone because the site is. I briefly tried Janet, and may again, but at the time it just didn't do it for me. Too many dots, square brackets, and random punctuation. And what's wrong with lists? Not a list to be found...